


Brave New World

by amaryllis_radiata



Category: Naruto
Genre: AU, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, SasoDei Week 2020, The Last of Us AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:48:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27001486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaryllis_radiata/pseuds/amaryllis_radiata
Summary: Sasori had been thirteen years old when the world ended.Day Two of SasoDei Week 2020: War/Post-Apocalypse AU
Relationships: Deidara & Sasori (Naruto), Deidara/Sasori (Naruto)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23





	Brave New World

**Author's Note:**

> This is a The Last of Us AU, but you don’t need any knowledge of the games or its characters to understand it.

Sasori had been thirteen years old when the world ended.

The world hadn’t really ended, but it had certainly changed beyond recognition. There were no countries anymore. There was no unified infrastructure. People didn’t commute half an hour on polluted highways to work 9-5 in stuffy offices anymore. Trains and airplanes were a thing of the past, but old diseases suddenly became very modern again. People lived in militarized quarantine zones, independent settlements, or nomadic groups.

All of this paled in comparison to the outbreak of what they called the Infected. 

Sasori could remember the anchors talking about them on the news as he’d packed his lunch for school. These people were ill, they had said, though no one at the time truly understood with what. They acted like they were infected with rabies, but rabies didn’t cause these symptoms in humans. It didn’t cause them to become violent. The news cautioned staying home if you felt ill and calling your doctor because the hospitals were running out of beds to put people in. 

Sasori could remember looking to his grandmother as she’d watched the TV, sipping her morning tea. She’d looked worried, but she’d never spoken a word. He’d left shortly after that, and he’d never seen her again. He often wondered if his life would have gone differently if she’d kept him home from school. Sometimes he wondered if she’d survived. It didn’t really matter. 

It was at school that he’d seen his first Infected. A teacher had brought it in, probably prepared to work through illness to make a paycheck. How could they have known that they would be the cause of death for dozens of children? 

They hadn’t known it at the time, but the cause of the infection was a fungus. Breathing in the spores was enough to cause the infection, though a bite from one of the Infected passed it on just as well. It attacked the brain first, causing those afflicted to lose all sense of identity as they were puppeted into attacking and infecting other humans. 

It had been twenty years since the Outbreak, and Sasori occasionally found himself nostalgic for how simple things had been when he was thirteen and only had to worry about his grades. He wondered if it was better or worse than the ignorance his new “partner” lived in. He tore his gaze from the ancient billboard advertising a home goods store that had launched his moment of reflection and looked beside him to where Deidara was laid out on his stomach staring down the scope of a sniper rifle. Deidara was nineteen, which meant he’d been born a year after everything went to hell. He had no memories of “before.” Was it easier being born into this, not having to adapt? Not having a childhood ripped away because you’d never had one to begin with? 

“There’s at least twenty of them, hmm. Maybe more further in.”

Sasori forced himself to look away from the messy half-up style Deidara had tossed his blond hair up into when they were leaving camp this morning and turned his attention to the building Deidara was scoping. He had no hope of seeing what Deidara could through his scope, but he could see several figures milling around behind dingy windows in the building across the street. 

“Infected?”

“Looks like it. Fresh ones, too.”

Sasori pressed his hand to his eyes in frustration for a moment. When he looked up Deidara’s brilliant blue eyes were turned to him instead. 

“Whatcha think, Danna? Tell Leader it wasn’t worth it?”

“You know as well as I do that he won’t accept that answer, especially if the weapons and ammunition are still in there.”

Deidara grinned at him lazily from where he was laying, turning onto his side to make full eye-contact. Sasori found himself willfully ignoring the way his black shirt pulled up just enough to show a line of skin above the waistline of his pants, though part of him wondered if Deidara did it on purpose. “Yeah, but twenty’s a lot, even for you, hmm.”

Sasori looked back down towards the old warehouse, then smirked. “Done worse.”

Deidara frowned, then sat up, causing that little patch of exposed skin to vanish back under his shirt. Not that Sasori had noticed. 

“It’d be better to draw them off and go in when the coast is clear.”

“You just want an excuse to blow something up.”

Deidara’s frown was slipping into his trademark grin, and Sasori found himself desperately trying to hold on to the feeling of irritation that his partner was usually so good at inspiring within him. 

“Always, hmm, but even you have to admit that it’s a good idea.”

“It’s not a good idea.”

“You’re just saying that because you didn’t think of it, Sasori-no-Danna.”

“No,” he growled, “I’m saying that because an explosion will bring every Infected for miles in your direction when you set it off.”

“Aww, see?” Deidara laughed, pushing himself up into a crouch beside Sasori and knocking their shoulders together. “I knew you cared about me!”

“What gave you that impression?” Sasori asked, berating himself for missing his warmth the moment Deidara pulled away to start packing up his rifle. 

“Have a little faith. I can rig something to explode with a timer so there’s nothing to worry about.” Deidara’s rifle stand disappeared into his bag as the gun itself was slung over his shoulder in a practiced motion. Sasori pulled his gaze away to look back towards the warehouse, scanning for potential entrances. Newly infected meant the smuggling ring they’d come here to steal from had likely gotten overrun, but that didn’t mean their goods were still here. Some may have managed to get away and avoid infection, and then all of this would be for nothing. 

-

“You’re going to get us both killed, and then I’ll have to kill you for that, brat.” 

Deidara’s staticky laughter over the headset was his only response. He’d left over an hour beforehand to rig his explosives, and supposedly was on his way back. Sasori might have found it disconcerting how quickly he’d set the bombs if they hadn’t already been partnered together on other missions where explosives somehow became necessary to their success. 

He was waiting in a stairwell of the parking garage beside the warehouse itself. He’d spotted boards that bridged the gap between the narrow windows of this stairwell and the third story windows of the warehouse from the vantage point across the street. The boards were thinner than he’d have liked and much higher than he preferred, but it was still safer than going in a door on the ground level. Unless he fell. He wouldn’t fall. 

“Aren’t you back yet?”

“Patience, Danna.”

The signal sounded a little clearer this time, which meant he wouldn’t have much longer to wait. As much as he hated waiting, he still had a bad feeling about what they were about to do. 

“Ready?”

Sasori slowly let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Where are you?”

“Safe enough, hmm. Give it fifteen more seconds.”

“‘Enough’ isn’t what we agreed-“ 

Sasori’s response was cut off by the sound of the blast several blocks away, followed shortly thereafter by multiple car alarms being set off. How the fuck were there still enough cars with battery to even have functioning alarms? 

“What was that about fifteen seconds? You’re improvising again, brat!”

Sasori pulled himself up into the window and onto the very edge of the makeshift bridge. He couldn’t see the spot Deidara was supposed to return to, but he could see Infected pouring out of the warehouse and surrounding buildings. It looked more like fifty, and he doubted that was all of them. He could hear them yelling and running somewhere in the parking garage behind him, so he forced himself to focus on his goal across the boards instead of the street below him. 

Sasori had only made it about five feet before he heard another explosion, but this one was from only about a block away. He hissed and dropped down to his hands and knees, risking a glance despite his precarious position. He could see nothing but a tendril of smoke drifting up past the rendezvous point. Either Deidara was trying very hard to lure the threat away from Sasori or something was going wrong, but in either case he couldn’t wait to find out balanced on a few boards thirty feet in the air. 

He decided to crawl the rest of the way, easing the window open as slowly as his nerves could handle. Nothing attacked him immediately, so he pulled himself inside and landed in a crouch on the ground. He was beginning to get a little worried that Deidara hadn’t radioed him back, but now he had to turn it off or risk drawing any Infected that hadn’t chased the sound of the bombs straight to him. 

Sasori had apparently landed in what had been an office at some point and what was more recently the base of operations for this smuggling group. There was a man’s body lying dead of what may have been a self-inflicted gunshot wound under a desk. Sasori kept himself low to the ground, carefully drawing his crossbow and loading it as he crept further into the room. The car alarms were still blaring, though they sounded more muffled from inside. 

Searching the entire office took only took maybe five minutes, but it felt like hours in the cold silence. Sasori had only found a small box of handgun ammunition but had pocketed it anyway. There was a ledger, but it was months old. There really was no choice but to check out the warehouse floor. 

As quietly as he knew how, he eased open the door to the stairs. It didn’t creak, but he wasn’t so optimistic about the metal stairs stretching down into the dusty darkness. Sasori listened, taking in the sound of his own breathing and heartbeat while the alarms sounded pitifully in the distance. He hadn’t heard any further explosions, but that meant Deidara had either died or been successful. 

He gave it a few more moments of silence before starting his decent. He was only three more steps from the bottom when he heard the clicks.

The Infected had several stages that the fungus morphed the hosts bodies into as the infection progressed. Hosts in the first stage were commonly called “Runners” for their ability to see and run quickly. “Stalkers” showed more outward signs of the fungus around their heads and shoulders, accompanied with altered hunting behavior. “Clickers” were the first stage, in Sasori’s opinion, where the Infected completely ceased to look human anymore. The fungus completely ate away the brain at that stage, splitting open the skull and growing over the eyes. They compensated for this blindness with a primitive form of echolocation, clicking rapidly through rotting teeth. Sasori would never forget that sound, and unfortunately it was now rapidly rounding the corner. 

He readied his crossbow, holding completely still as the Clicker shambled around the boxes and into view. It was impressive, honestly, just how much control the fungus took over it’s host. To completely eliminate their higher intelligence within just a few hours or days until they operated on some twisted base instincts of the spores themselves. Sasori might have respected it if it weren’t such a risk to himself as well. 

Crossbows were quieter than guns, but the twang of the string releasing the bolt was enough to catch the Clicker’s attention before it tore through what remained of its skull. Sasori reloaded as the body fell, holding his breath as he listened. If there were more Clickers around then there really wouldn’t be much of a point in digging through boxes looking for supplies. Their hearing was much better than his, and he didn’t have his partner to watch his back. 

Nothing ran to his position, and so he risked moving the rest of the way down the stairs. He stepped gingerly over the Clicker’s body and peaked around the boxes, stomach dropping at the state of the warehouse. 

Boxes were busted open and empty. Several bodies littered the floor, and several Infected wandered between them. Sasori really didn’t want to think about how bad it would have been if Deidara hadn’t drawn so many off. He glanced over one final time, spotting a duffle bag beside a corpse. It was definitely full of something, but with how bad his luck had been so far Sasori wondered if it would just end up being clothes. 

He watched the Infected for another moment. He had to take the risk. Coming back empty-handed was not an option. As quickly as he dared he followed the line of boxes, ducking behind any time an Infected turned or wandered too close. A journey of twenty feet took several long minutes. 

The strap of the bag was still looped over the corpse of the man it had belonged to, and Sasori considered slicing it off with a knife before remembering his return journey. The Infected in the room seemed preoccupied with pushing against the warehouse doors, and so Sasori found himself carefully crawling out into the open to unclip the strap and slowly tug it out from beneath the rotting body. The man had to have been dead for several weeks, and Sasori could already hear the complaints Deidara would have over the smell of the bag. He pulled slowly, trying not to make noise as the strap finally pulled free. 

He clipped the strap back into place and eased it over his shoulder. The bag of was heavy, which hopefully meant it was full of guns or ammunition. He risked a glance back towards the Infected as he crept back towards the stairs, which meant he missed the Stalker in front of him until it’s hands had latched onto his left shoulder. 

Pure instinct had Sasori dropping his weight backwards to the floor, somehow avoiding the Infected’s teeth. His back hit the floor as he brought his legs up to kick the Stalker away, scrambling to aim his crossbow and fire. The bolt took it through one of the eyes and it crashed backwards into the boxes as it fell. 

“Fuck.”

There was no time to check if the other Infected had noticed the scuffle. Sasori ran for the stairs, pounding up the loud metal steps as the sound of pursuit picked up behind him. He crashed through the door to the office, kicking it closed behind and pushing a cabinet over in front of it. It wasn’t enough to hold them for long, but there wasn’t much else he could use to barricade and he had no time. 

Sasori loaded his crossbow again as he returned to the window, not loving the idea of trying to balance with it but seeing no choice. As an afterthought he turned his radio back on as he opened the window to climb back out. 

“Please tell me you’re alive, Deidara.”

The static of the radio crackled into his ear as he climbed out, trying not to think about how many bodies were now slamming against the door to the stairs. 

“—Danna?Sasori, can you hear me?”

Sasori couldn’t imagine feeling more relieved than he did in that moment. He pulled the window closed as much as possible behind him before turning to risk the catwalk again. 

“I hear you.”

There were infected pouring into the office behind him. He adjusted the crossbow and the extra bag, then moved forward, resolutely not looking down. 

“Don’t be angry, but there are a few more Infected than I thought, hmm.”

“You don’t fucking say?” Sasori hissed, stomach dropping when he heard the crash of the window behind him. “I’ve got a problem and I need cover now. Almost back to the garage-“

The Infected were crawling out the window. He gave up on caution, deciding he’d rather fall than get torn apart by those things behind him. Somehow he made it across, nearly falling to his knees when he made it back to the stairwell. He turned to shoot whatever was chasing him in time to see its head explode from one of Deidara’s rounds. Not one to waste time, Sasori shoved the boards forward and off of the ledge, destroying the bridge but cutting off their path to him. He felt no small amount of satisfaction watching the bodies plummet to the ground. 

“I need a path, Deidara. Is the street clear?” 

It probably wasn’t wise to run down the stairs, so Sasori forced himself to set off at a slightly less brisk pace despite the pounding of his heart. 

“If you can get to the North exit you should have a clear path behind some cars to the alley. There’s a fire escape on that side of this building.”

“Got it.”

It was easy to fall into a rhythm again with his partner on the other end of the radio covering his back with a rifle. Sasori wondered when he’d become so reliant on Deidara, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it. Following his instructions he was able to cross the road again, but it took him a little longer to make the jump to reach the fire escape without drawing the attention of more Infected. 

By the time he reached the roof again the adrenaline was starting to wear off and his back and shoulder were starting to hurt. Deidara was more or less positioned where they had been before, but Sasori could see a smear of blood on his arm through a rip in his sleeve. He sat down with his back against the wall to face his partner, letting bag he’d risked so much for rest between his legs.

“Welcome back,” Deidara said, sitting back from his scope to grin at Sasori. Sasori sighed in response, kicking Deidara’s leg without any real energy, which only made Deidara grin wider. 

“I thought you’d died, brat. Don’t ever do that again.” Sasori glanced up, expecting some smart response, but Deidara seemed to be studying his face closely instead. He quickly looked away. 

“What happened?” he asked, leaning forward to risk unzipping the bag. Deidara leaned forward as well, expression morphing into something almost sheepish. 

“There’s apparently an entrance to the sewers near here, and the explosion caught the attention of a whole shit ton of Infected that were down there. I had to toss a bomb to cave it in, but uh, that might be why this area has been so overrun?”

“And your arm?” Upon closer inspection the wound didn’t look too bad, but the sleeve was done for. Deidara was smiling at him again, prompting Sasori to resolutely focus on fighting with the zipper. 

“Fell down with the force of the blast and cut it open on the curb, hmm. Not nearly as cool as running across some planks three stories up while being chased by a dozen Infected.”

Sasori spared the younger man a brief glare before returning his attention to the bag. “Shut up. If your plan had any actual thought behind it that wouldn’t have been necessary,” he muttered. “Let’s see if it was worth it.”

With a final tug the zipper gave. Sasori swatted aside the flap and blinked at the haphazard assortment of shotguns, bullets, and what he could only assume was gunpowder in small cloth bags. It wasn’t nearly as much as they’d been sent here for, but it was certainly better than nothing. 

Sasori huffed and leaned back, resting his head against the wall and closing his eyes.

“Could be worse,” Deidara said quietly. Sasori hummed in acknowledgment.

“Think it’s safe to camp up here or should we start back?”

“We can camp and let it quiet down a bit down there, hmm,” Deidara responded, voice low and much closer to him than it should have been. Sasori opened his eyes, blinking when he realized that Deidara had stretched one arm to brace against the wall beside his head and was just a few inches away. “Glad you made it out, Danna.”

Any response he might have had died on his lips when his partner leaned forward to close the gap between them, chapped lips warm against his own. Before he really knew what he was doing he had gripped Deidara’s shoulders to return the kiss, pulling him closer until he was all but straddling Sasori’s legs. Sasori’s head swam as all of the anxiety of the past hour melted away, leaving him feeling warm and heavy. 

They parted with a gasp, Sasori’s chest heaving as he caught his breath and tried to process what had just happened. His cheeks heated in a flush, and Deidara was grinning at him again, but he found it only made him want to kiss the brat again.

“Wanted to do that forever, hm.”

“Shut up.”

Sasori wanted to kiss him again, so he did. 

Everything else could wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I suck at writing action scenes  
> Also me: only writes action scenes 
> 
> I had a lot of fun with this one! Maybe I’ll continue playing in this AU if there’s any interest.


End file.
